


The Stars Also Shining

by with_the_monsters



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, fake boyfriends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_the_monsters/pseuds/with_the_monsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Grantaire,” he puffed out, still breathless from the dash up the stairs and then the frantic hammering, “Look, I’m so sorry, I don’t have time to explain, but I need to you to date me. Please.”</p><p>Grantaire stared at him blankly for a moment or two, and then shut the door in his face. Combeferre eased his weight onto his right leg and waited. After a short while, the door opened again.</p><p>“Sorry,” Grantaire said slowly, eyes foggy with sleep and confusion, “Did you actually just ask me to date you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars Also Shining

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic a long time coming that I promised Lily (benswhishaws on tumblr) that I am also putting up for Combeferre/Grantaire week. It's going to be a multi-chapter (I'm not entirely sure how long yet I'm afraid) and I'm pretty sure that various side pairings will crop up, but since most of my pairings are up in the air at the moment I'm not sure what they'll be.

If Combeferre had to pick one thing he never ever thought he’d find himself doing, banging on Grantaire’s front door at quarter past midnight on a Sunday for the express purpose of making this particular request would probably come top of the list. Or maybe second top.

It was a small miracle that Grantaire answered at all, actually. Combeferre had been halfway to persuading himself that he wouldn’t.

“Grantaire,” he puffed out, still breathless from the dash up the stairs and then the frantic hammering, “Look, I’m so sorry, I don’t have time to explain, but I need to you to date me. Please.”

Grantaire stared at him blankly for a moment or two, and then shut the door in his face. Combeferre eased his weight onto his right leg and waited. After a short while, the door opened again.

“Sorry,” Grantaire said slowly, eyes foggy with sleep and confusion, “Did you actually just ask me to date you?”

“Fake date,” Combeferred emphasised, realising he probably should have led with that, “As in, pretend to date me,” he added when Grantaire continued to look nonplussed.

“I get the concept of fake dating,” Grantaire shot back, but without rancour. A coded little grin was beginning to lift the corners of his mouth. “Is there going to be an explanation for this particular request, or am I going to have to –”

Combeferre apologetically cut him off at this point by seizing the front of his t-shirt and yanking him forwards to kiss him. It was a clumsy movement, dislodging his glasses, and Grantaire’s mouth moved against his to form an ‘O’ of astonishment. Combeferre backed him hastily into his apartment and slammed the door decisively behind them both, releasing Grantaire the moment it was closed. Grantaire stayed absolutely still in the exact position Combeferre had released him in. He made no movement whatsoever until Combeferre turned back from locking the door and cleared his throat in embarrassment.

“Um,” he said at last, finally unwinding from that position and obviously trying not to look too shell-shocked.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Combeferre told him miserably, hyper aware that he had gone about this completely the wrong way, “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just – Courfeyrac and Bossuet were about to get to the top of the stairs, I could hear them telling each other to shut up. They’re sort of…” he trailed off here and gestured helplessly between them, “They’re the cause of this.”

“Ah,” said Grantaire safely, collapsing onto a sagging sofa, apparently beginning to find the whole thing vastly amusing, “You know, everything is beginning to make sense now.”

Combeferre carefully readjusted his glasses, and then headed through the mess towards the kitchen with purpose.

“I need coffee,” he informed Grantaire firmly, already beginning to collect himself, “And then I’m going to explain everything.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Grantaire rejoined with a grin, “My imagination is going beserk trying to figure it out.” There was a brief pause, and then his voice floated after Combeferre, “Oh, and please don’t open the cupboard above the microwave! You’ll disturb the mouse babies.”

 

-

 

Back in the sitting room a short while later, mouse babies successfully undisturbed, Combeferre took great galvanising gulps of coffee and began to feel like maybe the alcohol cloud was receding from his brain somewhat. Nonetheless, explaining the genesis of the situation was proving a slight challenge, if only because there was no possible way to make it sound anything other than completely stupid.

“Okay,” he started, more hopefully than anything else, “So, as much as I love and respect Courfeyrac and Lesgles, they were being intensely bloody-minded this evening since they passed much of the afternoon being bored stiff in an exam room. And we were all out together, drinking of course, and –”

“Without _me_?” Grantaire cut in, complete with dramatic clutch of heart to indicate hurt.

“We knew you had your evening class,” Combeferre countered without losing his train of thought (mostly a lie, as it happened – Combeferre had indeed remembered, but Bossuet and Courfeyrac had not which had resulted in Combeferre having to spend at least half an hour dissuading them from coming all the way to Grantaire’s flat to drag him out with them all). “Anyway, so they were being absurd, and chatting up pretty much every girl that walked past, and I made some inane jab about it, which was a mistake as it turns out. I mean, it just turned their attention onto me, and they would not _stop_ badgering me to go and talk to one of the guys at the bar. Seriously, this went on for like an hour, they get so fixated when they’re that drunk – and then Lesgles for some reason decided that I must be secretly seeing somebody, as that was the only possible explanation he had for me not being willing, and Courf picked up on that and God it just _kept going_. And eventually I had just had enough and, God, I was drunk and exasperated so I just said I _was_ seeing someone to get them to shut up, and then Courfeyrac for some reason bet me five hundred euros that I wasn’t. And I don’t know why I did it but I took the bet just to annoy him, and we actually shook on it, oh God, I’m an idiot –”

“You were drunk,” Grantaire interjected fairly at this point. He regarded most things done under the influence of alcohol as totally unworthy of blame.

“Yes,” Combeferre agreed, “But I don’t think that – anyway, yes, so I took the damn bet.” He broke off here and clenched his hands around his coffee mug, trying to figure out how to word this next part. “And – well, I’m so sorry. They asked me who, and your name just came out of my mouth, I don’t even know how. We’d been talking about you earlier, I guess, you must have just been on my mind –”

“You were talking about me?” Grantaire interrupted suspiciously, narrowing his eyes over at Combeferre.

“Yeah, they wanted to get you out, I had to remind them about your class, it wasn’t anything exciting I’m afraid,” he replied, shrugging, “But, look, here’s the thing. I know it’s really, really shitty and I seriously am so sorry to even be asking it. But I really need your help. I can’t afford that five hundred euros, I just had to have my piano repaired after Enjolras hit it with that cricket bat –”

Grantaire burst out laughing at the memory of that. Combeferre did not join in. He loved Enjolras dearly, and he was well aware that it was a complete accident, and had forgiven him totally – but, Jesus, he adored that piano.

“Anyway, I don’t have the money, and I know Courf does, his dad just landed that CEO job and he had enough to be talking seriously about buying himself a new car last week. So – please. Will you help me?”

It wasn’t until Combeferre reached the end of his plea and collapsed onto a battered plastic chair that he realised he’d been pacing anxiously the entire time. Nervous, a trifle desperate, he took his glasses off and began polishing them to give his hands something to do.

The silence seemed to stretch on forever until Grantaire blessedly broke it.

“If I’m in,” he said neutrally, “Do I get a cut of the five hundred?”

Combeferre tried not to look too hopeful.

“You can have the lot,” he replied fervently, “I don’t want to take Courfeyrac’s money, I just can’t afford to give him _mine_.”

“Nah,” Grantaire informed him thoughtfully, “A fifty-fifty split’s only fair.” He pondered it for a moment or two longer before finally breaking out into a wicked, wicked grin and leaning forward to offer his hand for Combeferre to shake. “You’ve got a deal. I’m in.”

“You are?” Combeferre asked in amazement as he clasped his hand in disbelief.

“Sure,” Grantaire replied, still grinning, looking almost wolfish as he released Combeferre’s hand, “I might even have done it without the promise of the money. It’s going to be hilarious – just imagine the _looks_ on everyone’s faces.”

“Oh,” Combeferre said, trying not to look too horrified, “God, I’d forgotten about everyone else. This is going to be quite an undertaking, isn’t it?”

Grantaire chuckled and leant back on his ratty old sofa, kicking his feet up onto the DIY coffee table he and Feuilly had made out of an old door and some bricks a few months ago.

“My dear fake boyfriend,” he told him jovially, “It’s going to be utterly worth it.”

Combeferre did not have the same sense of humour as Grantaire – it was one he shared with Courfeyrac and Bossuet and Bahorel, an exuberant, very physical sort of humour. Combeferre’s was a darker, infinitely more sarcastic breed. Thus, he knew he wasn’t going to find it funny in quite the same way – all the same, imagining Enjolras’ face when he told him did prompt a quick, quiet smile.

“Could you pass me the remote, please, honey bun,” Grantaire asked deadpan. Combeferre threw a cushion at him, but did follow it up with the remote.

 

-

 

“Relax,” Grantaire was saying to him the next day just outside the Musain, finishing off a cigarette, “If you act jumpy they’ll all figure it out straight away. We’ve got to play this completely cool. You’re usually the best at that.”

“Usually,” Combeferre replied a trifle testily, nervously adjusting his coat, “When I’m nervous it’s only strangers I need to act confident for. It’s very different with friends. Courfeyrac especially can read me like a book.”

“You’ve got to pretend deep inside yourself,” Grantaire informed him, putting on a breathy, slow voice in mockery of a pretentious drama teacher, “ _Be_ the relationship.”

“It might help if you didn’t look so pleased with yourself,” Combeferre rejoined dryly. Grantaire smirked, flicked his finished cigarette into the gutter, and then reached down authoritatively to twine his fingers into Combeferre’s. For a moment, he dropped his act of bravado, and squeezed his fingers reassuringly.

“It’s going to be great,” he said gently, “And we’re getting that damn money.”

Combeferre pulled himself upright, dropped him a lazy wink, and replied, “Damn right.”

With that, they strode casually into the café, ignored the waves of astonishment barrelling outwards from their friends, and squeezed themselves matter-of-factly onto the end of a sofa already occupied by Joly and Bahorel. Grantaire ended up half into Combeferre’s lap, and after a moment of uncomfortable shuffling appeared to make a split-second decision and slid gracefully into it completely, hooking an arm around his neck and then staring around innocently at everybody else.

“What did we miss?”

Combeferre had to bury his face into Grantaire’s shoulder to stop himself laughing.

 

-

 

That evening, Combeferre was still trying to deal with Enjolras’ hurt bewilderment whilst cooking dinner and trying to memorise all the possible treatments for Alper’s disease.

Enjolras wasn’t saying anything, of course – he’d expressed concisely his concerns for Combeferre’s feelings the moment they’d returned from the Musain and listened carefully to Combeferre’s assurances that he knew what he was doing and had faith in his relationship with Grantaire. Then he’d very quietly gone into his room, ostensibly to do some planning for the protest he was considering staging later in the year.

Combeferre knew, however, that Enjolras was unhappy about the situation. He wasn’t going to push him though – he knew his best friend would come to him for further discussion if and when he was ready. Mostly, he thought, Enjolras was subconsciously upset that Combeferre hadn’t seen fit to inform him that he had entered a committed relationship before Courfeyrac and Bossuet announced it to the whole group.

Sighing, he pulled the beef out of the oven and dumped it on the side, and was just sieving the vegetables when Enjolras came back out of his room looking determined. Combeferre steeled himself.

“Do you think we could get hold of twelve horses?” Enjolras demanded.

Combeferre blinked at him.

“Um,” he said, scrambling to readjust to this unexpected conversation topic, “I’m not – why do we need them?”

“It’s just an idea,” Enjolras replied vaguely, clearly preoccupied by it, “If we’re going to do this protest, you know, I want it to be memorable. We have to do something different.”

“It’s got to follow the rules,” Combeferre insisted as he dished up the food, “They’ll put us through enough shit even if we do that, we can’t risk deviating even a little bit.”

Enjolras nodded in acknowledgement of that, and as they sat down to eat remained quiet, clearly considering it from every possible angle.

It wasn’t until they had finished eating and were stacking the dishwasher that he paused and, almost _hesitantly_ , announced, “If he makes you happy – Grantaire, I mean – if he does, then… then I’m happy for you. Truly.”

Combeferre reached out and clasped Enjolras’ shoulder. As always, they communicated far better through simple touch than lengthy sentences.

The guilt was a hissing viper in the pit of his stomach as he replied, “Thank you, my friend.”

Enjolras smiled wanly and recommenced trying to fit the remaining glass into what little space remained in the top rack of the dishwasher.

A short while later, Combeferre sat at the table again, this time staring down at a weighty medical tome, trying to decide if the intense guilt he was feeling over tricking his friends was worth it. Just as he was swaying towards it not being, Grantaire’s wicked grin came into his head, and then an image of how unbearably smug Courfeyrac would undoubtedly be, and Combeferre straightened his back and decided, once and for all, that he was going to see this through to the bitter end.


End file.
